This is a war of inches

Good frigid monday morning, all! I’m on vacation today (and tomorrow, and I just asked if I could extend it to all week) and feeling pretty fine. My last fitness assessment at the clinic was today, as I’m nearing the end of the formal weight loss program. It consisted of another set of measurements, a treadmill heart rate test, some pushups, and a sit and stretch flexibility test.

Good news on all fronts. My treadmill test was great – it took over 5 minutes for me to hit the magic 130bpm, an increase from August. My heart rate recovery time is still not great, though it’s a bit better than it was. I hit 10 full man-style pushups (up from 7), and my sit and stretch test was 30% better than last time.

Most importantly, I lost more inches. I saw a friend the other day who I haven’t seen since I started at the clinic. She asked me what I have been doing, and I said “working out, eating better”. I do work out a lot, it’s true, and it’s evident in the inches. Oddly, the distribution of inches lost changed from November (when I did my last measurements) to today. In my last go around, there was a marked loss in my abdomen. Now I’m losing more in the areas where I’m depending on muscle for my sports – the areas where muscle is eating fat.

I lost eight inches from November 23rd to today, which I find pretty hilarious since I actually gained a pound in that time period. Oh yeah, and Christmas was in there, too. Of those 8 inches, 4.75 were in my butt, arm and calf. Did I mention that for the first time in my life, I have a butt? Oh yeah. Ive lifted weights, I’ve squatted til the cows came home, I’ve done more hours on an elliptical than I care to remember, but I have never had a butt before. Ladies, I’m here to tell you abotu the miracle of squash. The sport, not the starch. I have a perky butt. Nuff said.

So. I finally got weighed at the clinic. Since my intake weigh in, I’ve lost exactly nine pounds. It’s another indication to me that this is probably my best sustainable weight range. We’ll see what happens as I begin training for the try a tri, but I’m thinking that this will now be a war of inches, flexibility, and the ability to do whatever I want, regardless of my weight.